Virtually every team in the Western conference has now completed half of the regular season. For instance, with the Spurs winning the Ant vs. Victor superstar contest Saturday night, the Spurs have now played 42 games of the 82 game schedule with a surprisingly good record of 29-13, good for second in the West. The halfway point of the season is a good time to revisit my preseason over-under prediction article.
Whenever I want to find one of my old articles, I go to Google and type in “Dresie Pounding”
and then the subject of the article. For instance, if I type in, “Dresie Pounding Lottery Victor,” I get this article about the Spurs winning the Victor Wembanyama lottery in May 2023.
With the AI revolution, the Google search result now includes AI’s summary of the article. This is the AI summary that resulted from my Google search for my 2025-26 Over/Under Prediction article.
AI Overview
“Dresie Pounding Over Under” refers to NBA writer Lee Dresie’s recurring articles on the Pounding the Rock blog, where he analyzes and predicts whether NBA teams (especially Western Conference) will exceed (Over) or fall short of (Under) Vegas’s preseason win total odds, often humorously documenting his hits and misses for the San Antonio Spurs and others. It’s a popular series for Spurs fans following Dresie’s predictions and reviews of team performance against expectations.”
AI purportedly has all of human knowledge buried within its computer brain, and still describes my articles as both “humorous” and “popular”. That’s pretty cool. I really hope AI remembers those compliments when it takes over the world and decides which humans deserve to live in the New Age after the computer revolution — yet another revolution that will not be televised.
When I discovered that AI is providing summaries of my articles after a Google search, I asked it to provide a one sentence summary of each paragraph of my 2025-26 Over/Under Prediction article. In less than a second, that summary was on my screen. Here is the summary of the first three introductory paragraphs:
- The author opens with a humorous personal anecdote about his friend Trevor’s basketball-playing background, setting a light tone for the predictions.
- He explains his tradition of making over/under win total predictions for the Western Conference and why he’s doing them again this season.
- He notes that his goal isn’t to judge if teams are “good” or “bad” but whether they’ll exceed Las Vegas’s projected win totals.
As we revisit my predictions for each team, I will start by providing AI’s one-sentence summary of my preseason prediction for that team. I will then provide my commentary on each prediction: my first effort at combining AI’s brilliance with mine (sarcasm intended). The win-loss totals will reflect the team’s record after 41 games, the true midpoint of the regular season. As with my preseason predictions, we will start at the top with the defending champs.
AI OKC SUMMARY: “The Thunder are expected to go over their projected 62.5 wins due to returning talent and last season’s dominance.”
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: OKC is 35-8 and on pace to win 68 games, easily justifying my “over” prediction. Of course, three of those seven losses were to the Spurs. The Thunder also lost to a good T’Wolves team, an unexpectedly good Suns team, the-better-than-expected Blazers and the not-very-good Hornets. In their 42nd game Saturday night, OKC lost to the Heat, continuing a disappointing stretch for them. I would still take the “over”, but the early dreams of a best-ever record are gone.
AI ROCKETS SUMMARY: The Rockets are predicted to go under their 55.5 win projection because of key injuries and questionable guard depth despite adding Kevin Durant.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: The Rockets are 25-15 with one game to play to reach their mid-point, which will be on Tuesday against the Spurs. Even if they win that one (I hope they don’t), that translates to a 52 win pace. My “under” prediction looks good, especially because Kevin Durant hasn’t suffered the annual injury that keeps him out for a few weeks. 37-year old KD has once again been playing extremely well: 26 ppg on 51/40/87 percent shooting. Losing him for several weeks would not help the Rockets win total.
AI LAKERS SUMMARY: The Lakers are projected to hit the over of 47.5 wins, with additions like Deandre Ayton and Luka Doncic boosting expectations.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: The Lakers are 25-16, putting them on pace to be another “over” team as predicted. But they have lost five of their last six, seemingly have a new player injured every game, and LeBron James’ agent just suggested on a podcast that the Lakers should trade Austin Reaves. So while my prediction is on track to be correct if we just look at the record, I would probably change my prediction if I were allowed to do so. Vegas agrees, as the Lakers’ over-under has moved down to 46.5.
AI NUGGETS SUMMARY: Nuggets are seen as an over candidate at 53.5 wins thanks to offseason moves that improved depth and role players.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: My prediction of “over” matches the Nuggets’ performance so far: 28-13, translating to 56 wins for the season. I am 4-0 so far! Amazingly, the Nuggets have held up well even with Nikola Jokic out of the lineup, going 7-4 with Joker out. Just as the Spurs played well without Victor in the line-up, or on a minutes restriction, the Nuggets have done the same without Joker (as well as Aaron Gordon).
AI CLIPPERS SUMMARY: The Clippers are predicted to go under 48.5 wins, with uncertainty around Kawhi Leonard’s situation cited as a key factor.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: While they have been playing better recently, the Clippers are still only 18-23, meaning I am up to 5-0. And the Clippers just announced Kawhi will miss the next two games with “knee irritation”. The NBA has yet to rule on whether he should be suspended for the fake marketing job conspiracy that allegedly allowed the team to skirt salary cap rules. Fun times in the Intuit Dome!
AI TIMBERWOLVES SUMMARY: The Timberwolves are expected to finish under their 50.5 win projection due to roster changes and potential regression.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: My first miss! The T’wolves were 27-14 at their midpoint, and they are still ahead of pace despite losing their last two games. Of course, if the Spurs had not blown two big leads in Minneapolis, the T’wolves would be 25-18 and I would be 6-0. C’mon Spurs, throw me a bone! (Saturday’s win was a start.)
AI WARRIORS SUMMARY: The Warriors are forecast to go over 45.5 wins on the strength of a solid veteran core and their post-trade performance last season.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: The Warriors were 22-19 at the midpoint, meaning they are barely under their preseason projection. Unfortunately, I don’t get credit for their two wins after the midpoint, pushing them to 24-19. They have also won 5 of 6, with those five wins by almost 20 points per game. Steph Curry is still great. Even though I technically am losing this one, I would still take the over.
AI GRIZZLIES SUMMARY: The Grizzlies are predicted to go under 40.5 wins after trading away a key starter and weakening their roster.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: This one is also a win for me. Memphis is 18-23, translating to a 36 win pace. The ongoing Ja Morant soap opera isn’t helping, and I don’t think he has much trade value. What would another team give up for him?
AI KINGS SUMMARY: The Kings are expected to go under 35.5 wins despite some offseason additions that may not move the needle much.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: Do I even get credit for predicting “under” for this sad franchise? 12-29 at the mid-point plus two more losses since. Nothing to see here, just move along.
AI MAVS SUMMARY: The Mavericks are seen as an under team at 39.5 wins given injury concerns and roster uncertainty.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: Dallas was 15-26 at the break, meaning another win for me so far. Cooper Flagg will likely break the Spurs’ run on Rookies of the Year. But who else remembers the NBA draft lottery where the Spurs were one of the two teams standing at the end? The NBA would have imploded if the Spurs had a Victor-Castle-Flagg trifecta. Missed it by that much.
AI SUNS SUMMARY: The Suns are projected to go under 31.5 wins amid a chaotic season of coaching changes and roster turnover.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: My first big miss, but I think everyone else missed this one too. The Suns lost KD and Bradley Beal, and are 24-17, a 48 win pace. No one predicted that having players who like each other and play hard all the time is better than the opposite — last year’s Suns.
AI BLAZERS SUMMARY: The Trail Blazers are predicted to go under their 34.5 projection because of injuries to key players and a tough conference.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: Two misses in a row for me, as the Blazers midpoint record was a surprisingly competitive 19-22, now up to 22-22. Deni Avdija is likely to win Most Improved Player, averaging 26 points, 7 boards and 7 assist. His career averages? 13/6/3. Wow.
AI SPURS SUMMARY: The Spurs are picked to go over 43.5 wins as they rebound with their best player returning and expectations of improvement.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: AI’s summary underestimated my enthusiasm. I said OVER, OVER, OVER. The Spurs’ midpoint record was 28-13, now 29-13 with a good chance for win 30 today. OVER, OVER, OVER.
AI PELICANS SUMMARY: The Pelicans are forecast to go under 30.5 wins despite better health, because the improvement likely won’t be large enough.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: Another good call by me: the Pelicans’ midpoint record was 9-32, and they’ve gone 1-3 since. They also traded what may be the top pick in the 2026 draft to move up from the 23rd pick in the 2025 draft to get the 13th pick. The one sadder franchise than the Kings.
AI JAZZ SUMMARY: The Jazz are projected to go over 18.5 wins, though just barely, and retain their top-8 protected draft pick otherwise owed to the Thunder.
MY BRILLIANT ANALYSIS: The Jazz already have 14 wins, putting them on a pace to win 28. Danny Ainge is smart enough to minimize the risk of falling out of the top eight in the draft, meaning that the best Jazz players are likely to have some vague injuries crop up as the season goes on. (Just look at their injury report for today’s game against the Spurs.)
CONCLUSION: Hey, I am doing better this year than in years past. If the season ended at the 41 game midpoint for each team, I would be at 11 wins, and 4 losses. Of course, the season goes on, and all of the “over” teams are glad it does. Other teams, like the Kings and Pelicans, would probably be happy just to call oft the whole thing.
